New Room Advise

[SunkenCity]

I was thinking the smallest room would work as an airlock between the live room and control room.

I already got some solid core doors with auto sweeps but they all ready have handles in them. How and what can I fill them with?

Looks in the linked thread like they took a solid door and added material but it doesn't say what or how thick and that they are shimmed in frames around the door not the baseboard?

[Waka]

Hi Sunken city I'm Dan, I've just read through your thread and I can see you've got a nice space there. Just some comments:

How tall is the area above the control room you want to save? Can you stand up in it, it looks very low?

You're idea about the steel frame is very unlikely to work to support a room. The calculations need to be done by a structural engineer if you want to use steel. You don't need to by the way.

If you are having a room up there you need another set of timber floor joists decoupled from your control room joists, they need to be on proper supporting wall frames. If using steel instead of timber use steel studwork designed for it:

stud_intro.jpg

Also, when looking at the space above the control room remember to remove 2' in height to accommodate the floor air gap, floor joists, flooring, ceiling joists and ceiling air gap.

Hope you're doing well with the demolition!

[Waka]

I was thinking the smallest room would work as an airlock between the live room and control room.

I already got some solid core doors with auto sweeps but they all ready have handles in them. How and what can I fill them with?

Looks in the linked thread like they took a solid door and added material but it doesn't say what or how thick and that they are shimmed in frames around the door not the baseboard?

So about using the small room as an airlock, that's no problem, but this room is now no longer going to reduce sound transmission. If you stood in the small room with both doors closed you would hear everything in the control room and everything in the live room. Also, anything happening in the small room would be heard in both rooms clearly. The control room and live room would still be isolated from each other though, so that's good (providing both doors are closed). With an airlock you may not need to beef up the doors at all. It depends on how much isolation you need.

Also practically you might want to reconsider the door leading from the control room, through the small room into live room. What happens if the fridge/amp catches fire in the small room? You have no means of escape from the control room. In the UK this is illegal, I'm not sure whether it's a problem legally where you are from or not. But even if it is, I wouldn't risk that. Remember fires happen all the time unexpectedly (In fact my parents house was severely burned by fire earlier in the year). Give yourself an effective escape route and you can rest easy.

[SunkenCity]

Hi Sunken city I'm Dan, I've just read through your thread and I can see you've got a nice space there. Just some comments:

How tall is the area above the control room you want to save? Can you stand up in it, it looks very low?

You're idea about the steel frame is very unlikely to work to support a room. The calculations need to be done by a structural engineer if you want to use steel. You don't need to by the way.

If you are having a room up there you need another set of timber floor joists decoupled from your control room joists, they need to be on proper supporting wall frames. If using steel instead of timber use steel studwork designed for it:

stud_intro.jpg

Also, when looking at the space above the control room remember to remove 2' in height to accommodate the floor air gap, floor joists, flooring, ceiling joists and ceiling air gap.

Hope you're doing well with the demolition!

Hey Dan!

Its 4' right now and its enough to walk around bending your waist. Subtracting the air gap, studs and drywall from that (3 1/2" + 1 1/4 + 2" =5 3/4") it will still be usable.

I was looking at http://www.continuummechanics.org/columnbuckling.html and this stuff is a bit over my head. Need to figure out who would know about this sort of stuff. Is there a structural engineering forum lol.

The idea of using steel was because I thought I could use 1" square stock so it wouldn't take up as much space in between the outer leaf and the control room inner leaf. Steel studs are the same size as wood right so then there wouldn't be much of a difference and no reason to use steel studs. A timber frame would take up more space(than 1" squarestock) but what would the design for that look like? standard 16 oc 2x4s or something else?

Maybe I should just scrap the idea of having that space up there but it just sucks not having the live room feel as big and open as it does with that space. Also the storage up there and putting a little crash spot up there.

I'm running through more ideas on the the layout any suggestions?

[SunkenCity]

I was thinking the smallest room would work as an airlock between the live room and control room.

I already got some solid core doors with auto sweeps but they all ready have handles in them. How and what can I fill them with?

Looks in the linked thread like they took a solid door and added material but it doesn't say what or how thick and that they are shimmed in frames around the door not the baseboard?

So about using the small room as an airlock, that's no problem, but this room is now no longer going to reduce sound transmission. If you stood in the small room with both doors closed you would hear everything in the control room and everything in the live room. Also, anything happening in the small room would be heard in both rooms clearly. The control room and live room would still be isolated from each other though, so that's good (providing both doors are closed). With an airlock you may not need to beef up the doors at all. It depends on how much isolation you need.

Also practically you might want to reconsider the door leading from the control room, through the small room into live room. What happens if the fridge/amp catches fire in the small room? You have no means of escape from the control room. In the UK this is illegal, I'm not sure whether it's a problem legally where you are from or not. But even if it is, I wouldn't risk that. Remember fires happen all the time unexpectedly (In fact my parents house was severely burned by fire earlier in the year). Give yourself an effective escape route and you can rest easy.

So your saying the small room wouldn't get its own inner leaf? and it would just be the space inbetween the control room innerleaf, the live room innerleaf and the outer leaf?

This design might be the solution i'm looking for to solve some of these space issues with keep the loft but not reducing the size of the control room so much with the structure to support the loft. Getting rid of the small rooms inner leaf, making the control a bit bigger and shifting it over a bit to allow space for a timber support structure for the loft. The benefits of having it for an isolation booth dont out weigh the benefits of space saved by getting rid of its inner leaf. It would make the door and airlock easier to do. Mostly was going to use it for a workbench, kitchenette and storage any way.

Would still want a high level of isolation from control to live room enough to be able to not have drums and amps exceed the volume of normal monitoring levels(and a bit below) inside the control room so you can really dial equipment in and only hear whats coming out of the monitors. I know I should have gotten a Db meter by now but I havent yet.


Would there be any benefit to giving it its own innerleaf? is it even possible to have a single door/frame span two leafs without coupling them together?

I keep a fire extinguisher in that room already just in case I would put another in the control and I should add some Smoke alarms.

[Waka]

So your saying the small room wouldn't get its own inner leaf? and it would just be the space inbetween the control room innerleaf, the live room innerleaf and the outer leaf?

This design might be the solution i'm looking for to solve some of these space issues with keep the loft but not reducing the size of the control room so much with the structure to support the loft. Getting rid of the small rooms inner leaf, making the control a bit bigger and shifting it over a bit to allow space for a timber support structure for the loft. The benefits of having it for an isolation booth dont out weigh the benefits of space saved by getting rid of its inner leaf. It would make the door and airlock easier to do. Mostly was going to use it for a workbench, kitchenette and storage any way.

Would still want a high level of isolation from control to live room enough to be able to not have drums and amps exceed the volume of normal monitoring levels(and a bit below) inside the control room so you can really dial equipment in and only hear whats coming out of the monitors. I know I should have gotten a Db meter by now but I havent yet.


Would there be any benefit to giving it its own innerleaf? is it even possible to have a single door/frame span two leafs without coupling them together?

I keep a fire extinguisher in that room already just in case I would put another in the control and I should add some Smoke alarms.

Unless you have a door on each leaf there's not much point in having the inner leaf in the small room. You can have a single door on one leaf, but you need to seal the gap between the two leaves which will couple the leaves. According to Rod Gervais book apparently research suggests that door jams coupling two leaf walls doesn't reduce the effectiveness significantly, but I wouldn't risk it myself. You would also have to have 2 "super doors" as he describes them, with sheet lead screwed to them.

Long story short, don't bother with an inner leaf in the small room unless you are putting a pair of doors on each opening.

Are you going to have your build signed off by building control? I don't know about your laws, but it's a legal requirement in most places for commercial property. I would check with them about the fire escape route stuff before starting the build.

[Waka]

Hi Sunken city I'm Dan, I've just read through your thread and I can see you've got a nice space there. Just some comments:

How tall is the area above the control room you want to save? Can you stand up in it, it looks very low?

You're idea about the steel frame is very unlikely to work to support a room. The calculations need to be done by a structural engineer if you want to use steel. You don't need to by the way.

If you are having a room up there you need another set of timber floor joists decoupled from your control room joists, they need to be on proper supporting wall frames. If using steel instead of timber use steel studwork designed for it:

stud_intro.jpg

Also, when looking at the space above the control room remember to remove 2' in height to accommodate the floor air gap, floor joists, flooring, ceiling joists and ceiling air gap.

Hope you're doing well with the demolition!

Hey Dan!

Its 4' right now and its enough to walk around bending your waist. Subtracting the air gap, studs and drywall from that (3 1/2" + 1 1/4 + 2" =5 3/4") it will still be usable.

I was looking at http://www.continuummechanics.org/columnbuckling.html and this stuff is a bit over my head. Need to figure out who would know about this sort of stuff. Is there a structural engineering forum lol.

The idea of using steel was because I thought I could use 1" square stock so it wouldn't take up as much space in between the outer leaf and the control room inner leaf. Steel studs are the same size as wood right so then there wouldn't be much of a difference and no reason to use steel studs. A timber frame would take up more space(than 1" squarestock) but what would the design for that look like? standard 16 oc 2x4s or something else?

Maybe I should just scrap the idea of having that space up there but it just sucks not having the live room feel as big and open as it does with that space. Also the storage up there and putting a little crash spot up there.

I'm running through more ideas on the the layout any suggestions?

To have that space up there support a person's weight will likely need 2" x 10" joists or more. You also need to have a ceiling over the entire live room, including loft area if part of the live room. This will probably want engineered
I-beams. This is part of the inner leaf of your live room. This is why I said take 2' off. (Air gap 1" + Floor joists 10" + 1/2 inch Flooring + 10" Ceiling joists + 1" air gap) That's at least 22" off of the 4'. You can't fit a futon in 2' space.
That 4' is far better served as acoustic ceiling height in the control room, it doesn't add that much to the live room honestly.
You can improve the sound of the live room with treatments remember. But a 7' control room ceiling is crippling to any design.

[SunkenCity]

Been really busy lately with other projects but I found some time to work on the framing of a support structure.

I figured the strongest I could build without sacrificing a ton of space along the concrete wall would be to stack 2x10s log cabin style.
seems like that would provide enough strength to support the joists and walls of the loft.

Hopefully because there wouldn't be a sealed air space there would be no triple leaf effect.

probably will space the ceiling joists closer together to be able to use 2x4s instead of 2x6 or 2x10.

didn't frame up the some of the walls so it would be easier to see would going on.

but basically its a frame that goes around & above to form the inner leaf of the live room while supporting the loft and the leafs on top of it .

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If the control room is built inside out and height from floor to inside layer of the drywall is about 7' 5 1/2" with out the rockwool will it still be crippling?

[Gregwor]

Hey dude! Great to see you back on the forum. You know we aren't being jerks when we point out silly stuff, so with that said:

seems like that would provide enough strength to support the joists and walls of the loft.

"seems" isn't scientific. You need to have that approved by an engineer otherwise when you get your framing approved, you will fail. Also, it will cover your ass if it falls and kills someone.

probably will space the ceiling joists closer together to be able to use 2x4s instead of 2x6 or 2x10.

"probably" can be turned into a confirmed statement with the approval of a structural engineer.

And in my experience, 2x4's won't span much further than a walk in closet, not the width of a control room.

If the control room is built inside out and height from floor to inside layer of the drywall is about 7' 5 1/2" with out the rockwool will it still be crippling?

I'm trying to help a client of mine arrange/treat his control room that is in his parents basement. He has a ceiling height of 8'6" and that is crippling his acoustics. A foot shorter than that would be pretty crappy. The fact is, you HAVE the space for whatever ceiling height you need.

I'll say this - design your control room completely. That means figuring out cloud angles, soffit wall heights, all of that. As soon as you go to figure out your cloud angles and design to obtain RFZ in your vertical plane, you'll realize how screwed you are with a short ceiling.

Greg

[SunkenCity]

Hey dude! Great to see you back on the forum. You know we aren't being jerks when we point out silly stuff, so with that said:

seems like that would provide enough strength to support the joists and walls of the loft.

"seems" isn't scientific. You need to have that approved by an engineer otherwise when you get your framing approved, you will fail. Also, it will cover your ass if it falls and kills someone.

probably will space the ceiling joists closer together to be able to use 2x4s instead of 2x6 or 2x10.

"probably" can be turned into a confirmed statement with the approval of a structural engineer.

And in my experience, 2x4's won't span much further than a walk in closet, not the width of a control room.

If the control room is built inside out and height from floor to inside layer of the drywall is about 7' 5 1/2" with out the rockwool will it still be crippling?

I'm trying to help a client of mine arrange/treat his control room that is in his parents basement. He has a ceiling height of 8'6" and that is crippling his acoustics. A foot shorter than that would be pretty crappy. The fact is, you HAVE the space for whatever ceiling height you need.

I'll say this - design your control room completely. That means figuring out cloud angles, soffit wall heights, all of that. As soon as you go to figure out your cloud angles and design to obtain RFZ in your vertical plane, you'll realize how screwed you are with a short ceiling.

Greg

as it is it's just a rough sketch and subject to change these are these not acceptable terms.

8' 6" isn't enough ceiling height? That seems a bit strange that it's not workable even at 8' 6".

if I go to almost the full 12' will that even be enough?

Am I in the wrong forum?

It's nice to have high standards but are we getting unrealistic trying to make stuff perfect?

Am not looking to make a million dollar mastering suite

What's up with John's design here: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... f=1&t=5457?

the ceiling in his control room design is 8' 3" and the length of it is 10' 6"

there's gotta be alot of control rooms that weren't perfect that still made hits/good music right?

Det-Motown_Control_Rm_BB.jpg

FAME-control-room-2.jpg

[Soundman2020]

as it is it's just a rough sketch and subject to change these are these not acceptable terms.

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying at all. Greg suggested that you should design your room completely before building it, and you say that this is not acceptable? That makes no sense. It is simple common sense to design something properly before you build it. If you aren't willing to do that, then you are doomed to fail.

8' 6" isn't enough ceiling height? That seems a bit strange that it's not workable even at 8' 6".

I think you misunderstood Greg: he said that in the room HE is helping to design, 8'6" is marginal. That doesn't mean that 8'6" is ALWAYS marginal. But 7'6" is NOT going to give you good results.

What I don't get, is: why do you want to shoot yourself in the foot by limiting yourself to an extremely low ceiling, when you actually have plenty of space up there to make it much taller? You do have the space so WHY don't you want to use it?

if I go to almost the full 12' will that even be enough?

Very probably. It's certainly going to be WAY better than 7'6"

Am I in the wrong forum?

I don't know: Are you? DO you want to build the best studio you can afford within the space you have, or not? If that is your goal, then you are in the right place. If that is NOT your goal, then you definitely are not on the right forum. YouTube would be better: they have a large number of failed, cheap, low ceiling studios there, well documented up to the point where they failed...

It's nice to have high standards but are we getting unrealistic trying to make stuff perfect?

You can't do "perfect" in 7'5". You can't even do "good" in 7'5". The laws of physics are against you, and you cannot beat them.

Am not looking to make a million dollar mastering suite

Neither was Rod, and here's how his place turned out: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... =2&t=20471 It didn't cost him a million dollars, or even anything near that, yet it turned out fantastic. Here's another where they didn't try to build a million dollar mastering suite, and this is how it is turning out: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... =2&t=21368 That's turning out pretty darn good too, and it didn't cost him a million dollars either!

So it is possible to build a really good studio on a lower budget, as long as you first design it completely, in full detail, as Greg mentioned.

there's gotta be alot of control rooms that weren't perfect that still made hits/good music right?

And you show two control rooms that are museum pieces? Seriously? Both of those would be great if you wanted to turn out monophonic vinyl records for the 60's, with 60's instruments, musicians, and audiences... but good luck trying to record a Katie Perry or Lada Gaga album in that place! Times have changed... music has changed... audiences have changed. What was "incredible" in the early 60's, is no longer incredible. If Motown "A" was so great, then how come Bob Ohlsson didn't just copy it exactly when he built his other studios? Why did he go to 24 track in the 70's, then move on to mixing at Skywalker?

If that's your life's dream, to build a 1959 style 4-track mono studio and try to make money with it in 2019, then you really are in the wrong forum...

- Stuart -

[SunkenCity]

as it is it's just a rough sketch and subject to change these are these not acceptable terms.

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying at all. Greg suggested that you should design your room completely before building it, and you say that this is not acceptable? That makes no sense. It is simple common sense to design something properly before you build it. If you aren't willing to do that, then you are doomed to fail.

8' 6" isn't enough ceiling height? That seems a bit strange that it's not workable even at 8' 6".

I think you misunderstood Greg: he said that in the room HE is helping to design, 8'6" is marginal. That doesn't mean that 8'6" is ALWAYS marginal. But 7'6" is NOT going to give you good results.

What I don't get, is: why do you want to shoot yourself in the foot by limiting yourself to an extremely low ceiling, when you actually have plenty of space up there to make it much taller? You do have the space so WHY don't you want to use it?

if I go to almost the full 12' will that even be enough?

Very probably. It's certainly going to be WAY better than 7'6"

Am I in the wrong forum?

I don't know: Are you? DO you want to build the best studio you can afford within the space you have, or not? If that is your goal, then you are in the right place. If that is NOT your goal, then you definitely are not on the right forum. YouTube would be better: they have a large number of failed, cheap, low ceiling studios there, well documented up to the point where they failed...

It's nice to have high standards but are we getting unrealistic trying to make stuff perfect?

You can't do "perfect" in 7'5". You can't even do "good" in 7'5". The laws of physics are against you, and you cannot beat them.

Am not looking to make a million dollar mastering suite

Neither was Rod, and here's how his place turned out: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... =2&t=20471 It didn't cost him a million dollars, or even anything near that, yet it turned out fantastic. Here's another where they didn't try to build a million dollar mastering suite, and this is how it is turning out: http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... =2&t=21368 That's turning out pretty darn good too, and it didn't cost him a million dollars either!

So it is possible to build a really good studio on a lower budget, as long as you first design it completely, in full detail, as Greg mentioned.

there's gotta be alot of control rooms that weren't perfect that still made hits/good music right?

And you show two control rooms that are museum pieces? Seriously? Both of those would be great if you wanted to turn out monophonic vinyl records for the 60's, with 60's instruments, musicians, and audiences... but good luck trying to record a Katie Perry or Lada Gaga album in that place! Times have changed... music has changed... audiences have changed. What was "incredible" in the early 60's, is no longer incredible. If Motown "A" was so great, then how come Bob Ohlsson didn't just copy it exactly when he built his other studios? Why did he go to 24 track in the 70's, then move on to mixing at Skywalker?

If that's your life's dream, to build a 1959 style 4-track mono studio and try to make money with it in 2019, then you really are in the wrong forum...

- Stuart -

he was saying "hopefully" and "probably" aren't gunna fly with building inspectors and my rebuttal was that it's a rough sketch, and I don't see a problem with using them(those terms) on something that not set in stone.

there was no objection to his suggestion of redesigning from the inside out.

What was the point of mentioning the other projects ceiling height if not to say even 8' really isn't up to snuff either?

12' is "very probably" "way better"

What's the minimum height for a control room is probably what I should have asked a long time ago.

What's the minimum height for a control room of these dimensions?

What height should i shoot for in general?

What about John's design? http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... f=1&t=5457

It has low ceilings, it's asymmetrical and is about the same length as mine.

why does his work?

my point in saying i'm not building a million dollar mastering suite was not the monetary bit but the complexity of it.

Your first example had a whole hell of alot more space to work with. the second example I've been following for a while and don't understand how that didn't get shot down at first with the amount of space for the control room and the shape.

Sure Motown is outdated, but Fame is still a working studio! And what about Daptone

I don't wanna build a museum(although by looking at the gear it could be) Just suggesting can there be a happy medium of simplicity and function

I Guess it's back to the drawing board pretty much giving up on the whole loft open to the live room idea. figured I could make 7' ceiling work if it was inside out and dead. Can't really raise the ceiling without making the loft useless. shit.

[Soundman2020]

What was the point of mentioning the other projects ceiling height if not to say even 8' really isn't up to snuff either?

The point was simply that low ceilings are always bad, and even not-so-low ceilings can be bad in certain cases, such as the one Greg is working on. Whenever possible, go for decent height.

What's the minimum height for a control room is probably what I should have asked a long time ago.

There is no "minimum" height that will always work, just as there is no minimum length, or minimum width. What there actually is, is a set of guidelines which will allow you to work out a good set of dimensions for your room, in terms of the actual length, width, and height, and almost as important, the way the related to each other: the "room ratio". That's the relationship between the dimensions that governs how well the low frequency modes will be distributed, in terms of how smoothly they are spread around the bottom end of the spectrum. You do NOT want a room where all of the modes are clumped together in the same couple of frequencies! So you carefully choose your dimensions to make sure that doesn't happen. You choose a ratio that is within the "Bolt area", which is a region of a simple graph that shows which ratios are known to be bad, and which ones are good. If your room ratio is within the Bolt area, then your modes will be spread out fairly evenly. If your ratio is outside of the Bolt area, then your ratios not be spread evenly, and will be "clumped together", which will cause major problems for bass response and the overall acoustic signature of the room.

So there are no minimum widths, lengths or heights, but there are good ratios. And there are recommended minimum floor areas, and recommended minimum room volume. You can find all of this in documents such as ITU BS.1116-3, or EBU Tech-3276, or similar documents put out by Dolby and others. They all describe the conditions that a room must meet in order to be usable as a "critical listening" room.

The basic recommendation is for a minimum floor area of 20m2 (roughly 215 ft2), and a minimum room volume of 50m3 (roughly 1800 ft3). By doing the math, you can arrive at the height: if you have a room with a volume of 1800 ft3, and it has a floor area of 215 ft2, the logically the height must be 8.37 feet, which is 8'4". But that is NOT the minimum height for a studio! This is where people start going wrong: taking the math too literally. These are not written-in-stone rules! They are guidelines, recommendations, baseline points. There are many, many reasons why a studio designer might "break" one of those rules, if the room needs it. Designing a studio is all about taking a careful look at ALL of the aspects of the ENTIRE studio, then balancing them against each other, fiddling and tweaking and tuning and optimizing, until you have the best possible compromise, given the circumstances. If that means breaking one of the rules, and you UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE DOING, then that's OK. But if you DON'T understand what the consequences will be from breaking one fo the rules, then DON'T BREAK IT! Studio design rules can be broken, but only by those who fully comprehend the consequences of doing that, know how to compensate for it, and have the ability to deal with it in the rest of the design.

For example, the rules say "Never have a room where two dimensions are the same", but I broke that rule on purpose when I designed that control room: the length and width are identical, but that was the only option left open to me after the basic floor-plan was approved by the owner. And he made the decision to approve that plan, fully knowing and understanding the consequences. He had a set of priorities, and ending up with a square control room was the best way to meet those. So I designed the room to have identical length and width, deliberately, breaking that basic "rule", but then I used every trick in the book to minimize the consequences of that design decision! For example, instead of laying it out traditionally, front to back and left to right, I set it up on the diagonal, as a "corner control room". Then I chopped off one corner, to make it seven-sided, instead of six-sided, I splayed two of the walls slightly, shaped the front end as modified RFZ, tilted the glass in the front window, raised the ceiling as high as I could get it, added a hard-backed angled-cloud, included very major, deep, tuned bass trapping, and a number of other things. I also placed the mix position roughly in the middle of the room (breaking another huge fundamental rule that should never be broken), on purpose, because I needed the first-order modal phase calculation that occurs at that spot to help deal with the modal issues I create by making the room square... I broke yet another rule: the floor area is only about two thirds of what the minimum "specifications" say....

So that room "breaks" several rules, but you can see the results. It has better acoustic response than many rooms that are much larger and follow all the "rules"! When the owner and I broke all those rules, we were fully aware of what we were doing, what the consequences would be, and how to work around that. But if a first-time home-studio builder asks me today if it is OK for him to build a square room like that, I would tell him: "No! Don't do that! Bad idea!". I can do it, because I have years of experience that have taught me what rules I can break, which ones I can't, and how to deal with the consequences. But I would NOT advise others to do that, unless they have also learned how. It isn't easy.

For those who don't understand the subtleties and complexities of acoustics, stick to the rules. Build a room with at least 215 ft2 floor area, at least 8.4" high, at least 1800 ft3. Go bigger, by all means, but not smaller. The smaller you make it, the harder it is to treat and tune.

What about John's design? viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5457

Firstly, that is JOHN'S design: One of the worlds leading studio designers, with decades of experience in designing rooms, and he pulled out all of the stops to fit in the best possible room GIVE THE AVAILABLE SPACE. Read the description: he designed that for a friend, to fit into the space that the friend had available. I'm sure John would have loved to raise the ceiling, but there was no space to do that, so he designed withing that limitation. In your case, you do NOT have that limitation!

It has low ceilings, it's asymmetrical and is about the same length as mine.

No, it is not asymmetrical. The front half is fully symmetrical, both visually and acoustically, and the rear half is symmetrical acoustically, if not visually. That room will provide a well-balanced sound stage with a clean, accurate stereo image.

why does his work?

Because John MADE it work! He DESIGNED it to work, taking into account the limitations of the physical space, and compensating with several design features that you probably didn't even notice. You do NOT have the same space constraints, so there is no reason to make yours like that. And if you really do what to make yours like that, then go ahead! Copy that design EXACTLY, don't change a thing, and it will work just fine! But if you change something without compensating, then it won't work the same as that room.

my point in saying i'm not building a million dollar mastering suite was not the monetary bit but the complexity of it.

If you want to keep your room simple, then build it big! If you want to make it complex, then build it small. It's that simple.

the second example I've been following for a while and don't understand how that didn't get shot down at first with the amount of space for the control room and the shape.

You don't understand it, because you were not privy to the many conversions the owner and I had at the start when discussing his priorities for his studio, and therefore you are not qualified to comment on the decisions that he and I made when designing that studio. You are also not qualified to comment because you don't understand acoustics well enough yet.

The owner and I went through a total of ELEVEN different design concepts that I drew up for him over a period of a few weeks, until we finally decided on this one, as best fitting his needs and priorities. I'm not going to question the priorities of a customer who hires me to design his place. I might suggest changes, point out reasons why it would be good to do it different (which I did in this case), but I'm not going to "shoot down" his priority decisions when they are valid. I might decline to do the design of the decisions are just plain silly, but in this room, that's not so. His decisions are valid, even though it meant creating an unconventional control room. So I had to design around those, with the result you see. The owner had a fixed size piece of land of a fixed shape that he could not change for legal reasons, so I designed out to the limit of that. He also has neighbors close by, so I designed for maxim isolation. He also needed a bathroom built in, and it had to be in a certain location so it could legally be connected to the water and sewer lines. He had a fixed budget, and a fixed maximum roof height, and the studio had to fit in aesthetically with the existing buildings. But his number one priority was to have the largest possible live room within that space, with all the other rooms taking second place. That was his decision, and it is certainly valid: He needs that space so he can fit in the number of musicians that he plans to record on some occasions. So the I oversized the HVAC system as well, to allow for maximum occupancy, and taking into account the climate of where the studio is located. The over-sized HVAC placed limits on the maximum possible ceiling height. Etc. Etc. Etc. We discussed and balanced and compromised on all of those parameters, and went through that series of eleven different layouts, some of which included a separate vocal booth. He dropped that, once he saw how much space it would take up. The layout you see on his thread is the result of many, many, many hours of discussion and optimization, and looking at alternatives, playing around, modifying, compromising, improving. tweaking, etc.

If you must know, at the time of those discussions, the owner did indeed express his concern about the corner-design control room. Not because o the size, but because of the layout. He had spoken with some of the musicians and engineers who would be using his studio, showing the the rough outline, and some of them were unsure that such a control room layout would work. I assured him at the time that, yes, if it was tuned right, it certainly could work, with certain limitations. I assured him that it could be tuned for reasonably flat response, despite being "square", and it would have good acoustics, good modal control, and still not be "dead". He trusted me to do that, and you can see the results on his thread: we are already meeting the specs for much larger control rooms, and there's still a couple of things left to do.

The only reason why you think that such a design should have been "shot down at the start due to the space and shape", is because you don't have a clue what went on when the place was designed, and also don't understand acoustics well enough to be able to judge if that is a workable design or not. Sorry to be harsh, in-your-face, but that's the truth. I don't take kindly to having my designs criticized by people who don't ave a clue what they are talking about.

Just suggesting can there be a happy medium of simplicity and function

I recently did a room where the acoustic height of the ceiling is 9'6", deliberately designed like that to minimize modal issues. The total area occupied by the CR is 144.3 ft2, or only 67% of the SMALLEST recommended size... And the room volume is only 1378 ft3, or only 77% of the "standard" volume. The room is simple in concept, it is functional for the purpose for which it was designed, and it didn't cost a million dollars. It works because, despite the small size, and all of the broken "rules", it has been designed to work.

I Guess it's back to the drawing board pretty much giving up on the whole loft open to the live room idea.

Why do you want that open loft area? What is the function of that? Can that function be eliminated? Can it be accomplished some other place outside of the actual isolated studio area? If you do eliminate it, what are the consequences? Can you live with that, or is it critical to the operation of the studio? Is the loft more important for the purpose of the studio than having a control room where the mixes translate very well? Balance the priorities here: If the main purpose of the studio is to produce music that sounds great wherever it is played, then the loft goes. If producing great music is not a priority, and having a loft is the number one priority, then the loft stays and the CR has a low ceiling, with all the negative results of doing that.

figured I could make 7' ceiling work if it was inside out and dead.

The control room cannot be dead. It must meet the specifications for the decay rates, ITDG, reverberant field, diffuse field, direct field, etc. A dead studio or an unbalanced studio is uncomfortable and fatiguing to work in. The ceiling can only be as dead as is needed to meet the goals laid out in ITU BS.1116-3 and similar.

Can't really raise the ceiling without making the loft useless.

Compromises... balance... adjustment... consequences... priorities... those are the things that a studio designer has to juggle, to come up with the best solution that takes into account all of the parameters, and all of the goals.

Your studio will only ever be as good as the amount of time you put into the design. If you really want it to be as good as it can be, within your budget, and making the best use of space, then I'd suggest that you buy and read two books: "Master Handbook of Acoustics" by F. Alton Everest (that's sort of the Bible for acoustics), and "Home Recording Studio: Build it Like the Pros", by Rod Gervais. The first one will give you the background in acoustics that you need to be able to design a studio, and the second one will give you the basics for actually designing it and building it.

- Stuart -

[SunkenCity]

So basically what your saying is even if someone posts a "design" that breaks rules because that's what they have to work with or it's designed that way for a purpose you wouldn't help them correctly break the rules because they lack the knowledge to break rules

And you would rather tell someone "No! Don't do that! Bad idea!" instead of helping someone figure out how to actually make something work

I don't have to be qualified to pose a question about your designs and why they are workable.

Not qualified to comment!

I'm not even going to get into how you come off with your statements

My reasoning for bringing up these designs is because they are smaller control rooms and break the rules/guidelines and coinciding with what i've said above, why wouldn't you wanna help people figure out how to make things work instead of just telling them no.

The original dimensions were within the bolt area despite the low ceiling.

messing around with the ratio on Amroc the closest I got in the bolt area and not reducing the live room any more was the ratio

L 13.5' x W 9.2' X H 11' 1366.21 cft

[Soundman2020]

So basically what your saying is even if someone posts a "design" that breaks rules because that's what they have to work with or it's designed that way for a purpose you wouldn't help them correctly break the rules because they lack the knowledge to break rule

Exactly, yes. Because breaking the rules in complicated situations is complicated! It involves a LOT of careful precision design work, and there's no reason why anyone would expect that to be done for free. If you wanted to do that, you should hire a studio designer to do it for you, not expect to get a free lunch.

Think of it this way: If you have a doctor friend, and you catch a cold, he probably won't mind telling for free how to treat that yourself. Simple common medical knowledge. He won't need to do much "doctor work" to figure it out and help you. But if you have a brain tumor, would you still expect him to tell YOU how YOU can treat that yourself? And would you expect him to help you for free? That's specialized stuff! There's no way he's going to be able to help you for free, and CERTAINLY nothing he can tell you that you can do to treat that yourself. It's beyond the realm of what a reasonable person would consider.

So to answer your question: No, I would not be able to tell you what you can do to fix a square room with the mix position at 50%, and make it sound good. Yes I can do it myself, but no, you can't. If you want that done, hire a studio designer, then follow his instructions. Pay for the knowledge and skills that you need to do complex stuff. Don't expect to get it for free.

And you would rather tell someone "No! Don't do that! Bad idea!" instead of helping someone figure out how to actually make something work

Yes, that's correct. Back to the doctor analogy: "you would rather tell someone "No! Don't chop your own head open and try to pull the tumor outt! Bad idea!" instead of helping someone figure out how to actually chop his head open and pull his tumor out". Yup. You bet the doc would tell you not to try!

There's a reason that cartoons and magic shows have disclaimers at the beginning, saying; "Kids, don't try this at home!".

I don't have to be qualified to pose a question about your designs and why they are workable

You didn't pose a question: you made an obnoxious comment, implying that it was a stupid design, and should have been thrown out. Posing a question would be something like: "Wow! I didn't know that it was possible to make a small square room like that sound good: How did you do that?". But that is NOT what you did. Instead, you said: "I don't understand how that didn't get shot down at first with the amount of space for the control room and the shape." That isn't a question. It's a statement of your opinion that the design is defective, and a rather denigrating statement at that. The mere fact that you made it at all, in light of the impressive results that we are already getting with that room, is a rather clear indicator that you are not qualified to make such a statement, because you don't even understand what you are seeing.

I wouldn't be surprised to see what type of statement you'd make about Martin's room ( http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... 10&t=21539 ), which is even smaller, yet working out just as well... Should he have "shot down" the design I did for his room as well, because of the shape and size?

Not qualified to comment!

Right. Just like I would not dare to comment on a neurosurgeon's strategy for removing a brain tumor. I would not comment on that, because he is qualified and I'm not.

I'm not even going to get into how you come off with your statements

You might want to take a look in a mirror at some point, and see how you are doing on that score...

My reasoning for bringing up these designs is because they are smaller control rooms and break the rules/guidelines

... and were designed specifically by experienced studio designers, who know how to deal with complex issues!

why wouldn't you wanna help people figure out how to make things work instead of just telling them no

Sure I'd help them! But not when they demand to be helped for free, thinking that they are somehow entitled to special treatment at no cost! All of the cases you are looking at, are designs that were paid for by the studio owners... Why do you think I should dedicate dozens of hours to solving problems that YOU created for yourself, and refuse to even acknowledge? I have no problem at all helping people on the forum who appreciate the FREE advice they are getting, as long as they don't have unusually complicated problems that are going to require a lot of my time to analyze and treat. Why should they get a free ride, when others are paying for it? Hell, I'm even happy to help folks for free when they do have complicated problems, as long as they show some appreciation, and accept the advice I give them, without insulting me to my face and insisting that they are entitled to my help at no cost, "just because"! A little bit of civility goes a long way...

The original dimensions were within the bolt area despite the low ceiling.

Here's an interesting design I just came up with, specially for you. In this one, the dimensions are also within the Bolt area, despite the low ceiling:

silly-sized-room-bonello-and-bolt-2.jpg

Take a look at that, closely:

- The ratio is well within the Bolt area,
- The Bonello chart is very smooth,
- The ratio is great., at 1 : 1.28 : 1.67 (almost spot on for Sepmeyer's best ratio)
- The modes are very evenly spaced, across the entire spectrum.

That room is going to be amazing, isn't it?

I'm judging it in the same way you are judging yours: Just by looking at the Bolt area, Bonello chart, and ratio, while ignoring the actual dimensions. And I have to admit, based on the data in the above graphs, that room should be fantastic!

Now take a closer look, at all the details:

silly-sized-room-dimensions.jpg

Notice the actual dimensions of the room: When I said it had a low ceiling, I wasn't kidding: The ceiling is only 18 cm high! Length is 30cm, and width is 23cm. In Imperial terms, that "room" is about the size of a shoe box: 12 inches long, 9 inches wide, and 7 1/2 inches high...

How well do you think a shoe box would perform as a control room?

You might think that's a silly exercise, but it isn't silly at all: It points out, rather clearly, that just looking at the RELATIONSHIP between dimensions is shortsighted and totally pointless, unless you also take into account the actual physical dimensions, and UNDERSTAND what the implications are.

My hypothetical "Shoebox Studios Control Room #1" meets all the criteria that you mentioned (low ceiling, good Bonello chart, good ratio, in the Bolt area), yet is clearly absolutely impractical, and would actually sound pretty darn awful (if you could even get your head inside to listen...)

It's not just the ratio that matters: The ration isn't even that important. Far, far more important is room volume, floor area, and overall design.

messing around with the ratio on Amroc the closest I got in the bolt area and not reducing the live room any more was the ratio

L 13.5' x W 9.2' X H 11' 1366.21 cft

That is, indeed, a better set of dimensions for a control room, acoustically. It's unusual, but perfectly valid, to have the room higher than it is wide: not a problem. 1360 ft3 is acceptable. However, floor area of 124 ft2 is only about half of where it should be: A room that small is going to be a bit claustrophobic, not sound so great, and maybe not very practical. Make it a bit bigger, such as maybe 15' long by 12' wide and 10' high, and you'd be in much better shape. Still not at the minimum floor area, but close.

- Stuart -